Irondequoit Bay Ice Fishing 12/29

[W.W.IV.]

Launched the boat at sunrise around 11ish.late sunrise, Found tons of fish in 55fow but they didn't want to play. Moved to another spot didn't mark anything, started catching perch in 20-25fow.Kept about 20 nice ones and called it a day. It was an enjoyable day and all the diehards were there.

[W.W.IV.]

Correction I fished the 28th.

[bosco]

Say....do any of you perch nuts fishing off the markers out there ever catch an oddball walleye or two? I'm trying to improve my knowledge of the bay as a walleye fishery and I'm curious if they're ever out there feeding on small perch.

[daker1979]

bosco, my buddy and I were just commenting about this subject over Xmas.

In the last few years we have caught 100's maybe 1000's of perch on this bay as well as Sodus and have never yet caught a stray walleye. Simply amazing don't you think..... most of the time we're using live bait.....

We have seemed to catch every other species that reside there but not a walleye???????

[bosco]

I've caught many walleye on the bay over the last 3 or 4 years. I specifically target them though. I've only limited out with 5 one time. I've had several nights where I've gotten 2 or 3 (I mostly fish at night). A few nights where I've gotten skunked too. They're in there. The DEC stocks them. I think it's just a matter of learning their tendencies for that particular body of water and developing tactics specific to them. I'm patient, and learning. I know there's got to be a few guys who know the bay that can light it up. But info. doesn't pass back and forth as readily as it does for say Oneida or Erie. Just not as many guys targeting them. But I moved to Irondequoit almost 2 years ago. I'm a mile from the launch. It's my new adopted home water, and walleye are my species of choice. I think it's just going to be a matter of putting in "time behind the wheel" and limits will be turning up regularly. Can't say as they're the tastiest I've had though. Something funny about that water or their diet.

[W.W.IV.]

bosco, check the fishing regs. the limit is three 18inchers on Eyes in the lake and bays. Your doing better than you thought.

[bosco]

LOL!! Oooops! Thank you sir!! I RARELY keep more than 1 or 2 in the 18"-22" range anyways. Just enough for a fresh meal or two. I don't like to freeze it and I won't eat it 3 or 4 days in a row either.

[ray koziatek]

talk about eating the evidence..i ant seen no fish ,no sir not a one..........BURPPP.

[L&M]

Your on a roll again Ray.

[wnybassman]

Say....do any of you perch nuts fishing off the markers out there ever catch an oddball walleye or two? I'm trying to improve my knowledge of the bay as a walleye fishery and I'm curious if they're ever out there feeding on small perch.

Seven years ago my buddy and I had an awesome stretch of walleye fishing on Irondequoit. He and I are both tournament bass anglers, and he was prefishing the bridge pillars there one July/August day and stumbled onto the action. He and his son caught 34 walleye, all 2-5 pounds in 2 1/2 hours. Didn't matter which pillars all across the bay from one side to the other. He repeated the same activity the following week as well.

I fished a club tournament there about a month after he discovered this action. It was around noon, the bass bite died, so I hit the pillars to see if I could duplicate this bite. I caught 7 or 8 walleye in about 10 minutes, all that same size range. Most fish he and I caught were spoons, but they were caught on other things as well.

The following year was after 9/11, and the Coast Guard didn't like anglers/boats hanging around the pillars. My buddy got chased off them a couple times, and I never tried. The last couple years I have tried, as well as he, and the walleye have not been there. Neither him or I know a great deal about the habitat or migrations of walleye, so we never pieced together why they were there for that stretch of time. It was fun while it lasted though.

[bosco]

I think yer talking like 70 FOW at the bridge pillars if I'm not mistaken. You get those eyes off the bottom, at that depth? Or suspended? I'll be checking it out. I've tried looping aroung those pillars in the past but the sonar bouncing off of them gives me a really funny looking screen, like there's huge clouds of bait fish or something. I figured it was interference and I couldn't really tell what, if anything, was under me. Very, very interesting info. though. Thanks.

[wnybassman]

They were always suspended, at roughly 20 feet down, take or give. Many times we would just drop the spoon near the pillars and it would only sink 20 feet or so before it stopped, and we knew were in 60+ feet. Fish on!!

There were guys trolling the area during that time, but they couldn't get close enough to the pillars that way. This was definitely a vertical thing.

It would certainly be something to check once and a while. It would make sense this was a stop along a seasonal migration or something. The schools hanging out there were massive, and they were hungry.

[Yankee Troller]

WNYBASSMAN - boy do u like these forums! I cant say i dont. I might get out on Conesus this weekend if the weather man is right for once. You down?

[wnybassman]

WNYBASSMAN - boy do u like these forums! I cant say i dont. I might get out on Conesus this weekend if the weather man is right for once. You down?

That's a tempting offer Rick, but will probably be on Silver. Good luck if you go!

[bosco]

So here's a reply to my own question, asked way back in December of 2007, "Say....do any of you perch nuts fishing off the markers out there ever catch an oddball walleye or two? I'm trying to improve my knowledge of the bay as a walleye fishery and I'm curious if they're ever out there feeding on small perch.??" Well....it look 11 years but yesterday it happened. Fishing the channel markers late afternoon, having a fair to good day on the perch, and up comes an undersized Walleye. He was small but then again, so are tons of those tiny perch down there. Always happy to get small walleye in I-Bay though as I see it as a sign of possible good year classes to come.

[bosco]

Little feller'

[ontherise]

Looks like sauger almost


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[EsoxAC3]

Are they stocking? I heard that a stocking program was trying to bolster the walleye population in sodus and I bay. Any truth in that? Would be great.


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[bosco]

When I first started fishing Walleye on I-bay about 14 years ago, my friend who introduced me to the fishery said the DEC had quietly been stocking the bay for years. After a few years of hit and miss and dialing in my programs as I learned the bay I don't think I ever caught an eye under 18"....seriously. The last few years I've caught steady limits and with some exceptional explosive nights and with a few cold runs in the mix and in those last few years I've been regularly throwing back shorts. Some of the smallest I've caught came just this year so that tells me they must be stocking regularly. I really don't think I-Bay is at all an ideal habitat for successful natural reproduction rates of the kind that have been filling my live well so regularly for well over a decade now.

[bosco]

From the DEC website...."From 1993 to 1998, Irondequoit Bay was annually stocked with fingerling Walleyes. Since 2003, the stocking policy calls for bi-annual plantings of fingerling Walleyes. Assessment surveys have shown that these stocked fingerlings survive and grow to produce a good adult Walleye population". I can attest to that last sentence. I've never targeted them through the ice though. Just Spring, Summer, Fall.